Camilo José Cela
Spanish writer (1916–2002)
Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquess of Iria Flavia (Spanish: [kamilo xoˈse ˈθela]; 11 May 1916 – 17 January 2002) was a Spanish novelist, poet, story writer and essayist associated with the Generation of '36 movement.
He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature "for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability".
Childhood and early career
Camilo José Cela was born in the rural parish of Iria Flavia, in Padrón, A Coruña, Spain, on 11 May 1916. He was the oldest child of nine. His father, Camilo Crisanto Cela y Fernández, was Galician. His mother, Camila Emanuela Trulock y Bertorini, was a Galician of English and Italian ancestry. The family was upper-middle-class and Cela described his childhood as being "so happy it was hard to grow up."
He lived with his family in Vigo from 1921 to 1925, when they moved to Madrid. There, Cela studied at a Piarist school. In 1931 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and admitted to the sanatorium of Guadarrama, where he took advantage of his free time to work on his novel Pabellón de reposo. While recovering from the illness Cela began intensively reading works by José Ortega y Gasset and Antonio de Solís y Ribadeneyra.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q132589. VIAF identifies the subject as 14767431. The Library of Congress control number is n79058799. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2002, 1989 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Camilo José Cela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.